Sunday, May 31, 2009

My super cool uncle has been in town these past few days and it's been great.

He is an Alexander Technique teacher. The Alexander Technique is an alternative medicine educational discipline with therapeutic effects that studies bodily coordination, including psychological principles of awareness. It is applied for purposes of recovering freedom of movement, in the mastery of performing arts, and for general self-improvement affecting poise, impulse control and attention. (Definition comes from Wikipedia)

He examined our walking and noticed Mireille was walking heavily, as though she had cement blocks for feet. The whole body was being pulled down to the earth.

Can you blame us? If the feet are planted solidly, we are more stable and less likely to fall and reinjure are we not?

If we constantly squeeze and contract every muscle and joint, we're less likely to dislocate something are we not?

With a bit of help from mononcle (my uncle's French slang nickname), Mireille practiced walking and imagining the body being pulled up to the sky. Thus creating space within all of the joints and, most importantly, helping me bend more freely and naturally.

The body knows how to walk. Just like the body knows how to breathe and the heart knows how to beat. You don't need to force it.

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About this blog...

I (Mireille) am creating this blog primarily to capture, remember and share my experience with ACL reconstruction. It will be written from the perspective of my left knee because, quite frankly, for the past several months, my life has been all about this injured knee. It only seems appropriate to make it the star of the show...